Becoming Responsible Communicators

Becoming Responsible Communicators Before we are born, we can hear the sounds of language. As infants, we hear language as meaningless sounds projected from our parents' mouths. When we realize that one simple word can make our mothers respond, we experience the power of words that can be helpful in communicating. Sometimes this power is abused. Haig A. Bosmajian, a professor of Parliamentary Procedure, Rhetoric, and Freedom of Speech at the University of Washington, uses …

…our thinking will surely follow that outcome. For instance, instead of saying that a woman "got raped," which implies that the victim is to blame, we should say that someone raped her. When someone corrects our pronunciation of their name, we need to take notes and practice doing better the next time. Bosmajian would agree that a task so small as improving our expression can have an astonishing impact on furthering justice in the world.